Let's be honest, this behavior of a company shunning a person/publication because they criticized the company isn't new. Many companies do this all the time. Electronic and car companies employ have been employing this behavior for quite some time. I'm not saying it's right, it's just the way business is. The company is in the market of selling something and if you bad mouth it or hurt the company, why should they give you access to them or their products. Now the difference is that developers are actually providing something that can help the companies sell more products. But from Apple's perspective there are new developers that can replace any that decide to leave. I imagine that they don't want to lose those developers, but right now it's not hurting their bottom line.

I think with people like Marco Arment and other people that were mentioned in the article, they know some of the guys that are working on iOS or MacOS and may of felt bad cause they criticized their work. As a developer my self, I never want to release a buggy product and work my hardest to fix as much as I can, but sometimes that choice is out of my hands. And obviously given that some of these people make their living off of writing about Apple, I think it's understandable they may be concerned that their words could hurt their reputation with the company and thus their living could be impacted. But that's a risk when you take a stance on something that impacts someone else.

Tanlis writes: The Librarian of Congress decided in October 2012 that unlocking of cell phones would be removed from the exceptions to the DMCA. As of January 26, consumers are no longer able to unlock their phones for use on a different network without carrier permission, even after their contract has expired. Consumers will be forced to pay exorbitant roaming fees to make calls while traveling abroad. It reduces consumer choice, and decreases the resale value of devices that consumers have paid for in full. The Librarian noted that carriers are offering more unlocked phones at present, but the great majority of phones sold are still locked. We ask that the White House ask the Librarian of Congress to rescind this decision, and failing that, champion a bill that makes unlocking permanently legal.Link to Original Source

tsamsoniw writes: "IT professionals with Linux chops — particularly systems administrator — are in high demand and short supply, according to a new survey from Dice. Over 90 percent of hiring managers surveyed said they plan to hire at least one Linux professional in the next six months — though nine out of 10 respondents also said that it's "somewhat difficult" or "very difficult" to find experienced Linux pros. That demand — driven by trends such as open-cloud development, Big Data, and increasing migration to Linux — has helped push the average salary for Linux pros up 9 percent to this past year, to $90,853."Link to Original Source

Posted
by
Soulskillon Friday March 02, 2012 @11:12AM
from the nice-try-with-the-math-trick dept.

New submitter rullywowr writes "After many users expressed anger, AT&T has moved the slowdown throttling bottleneck from 3GB of data to 5GB of data for users of 4G LTE smart phones. 'Previously, AT&T slowed speeds for subscribers who reached the top 5% of data users for that billing cycle and geographic location. Customers were outraged, arguing that the percentage method meant they had no way to know what the limit was — until AT&T informed them via text message that they were in danger of exceeding it.' AT&T still maintains the position that less than 5% of its users exceed the 3GB threshold each month."

concealment writes: "Navigation-and-emergency-services company OnStar is notifying its six million account holders that it will keep a complete accounting of the speed and location of OnStar-equipped vehicles, even for drivers who discontinue monthly service.

OnStar began e-mailing customers Monday about its update to the privacy policy, which grants OnStar the right to sell that GPS-derived data in an anonymized format.

Adam Denison, a spokesman for the General Motors subsidiary, said OnStar does not currently sell customer data, but it reserves that right."Link to Original Source

Posted
by
Soulskillon Friday February 25, 2011 @11:11AM
from the math-that's-way-over-your-head dept.

eldavojohn writes "After 65 years, Paul Erdos' combinatorial problem has been solved by Indiana University professor Nets Hawk Katz. The problem involved determining the minimum number of distinct distances between any finite set of points in a plane and its applications range from drug development to robot motion planning to computer graphics. You can find a description of the problem here and the prepublication of the paper on arXiv. The researchers used the existing work on the problem and included two new ideas of their own, like using the polynomial ham sandwich theorem, to reach a solution that warranted at least half of Erdos' $500 reward posted for solving this problem way back in 1935."

Posted
by
timothyon Wednesday October 15, 2008 @05:19PM
from the mysterious-ways dept.

radioweather writes "Like the recent stock market rebound, Arctic sea ice is making a big rally over the record low set last year. According to the Alaskan
IARC-JAXA website, satellite data which shows sea
ice extent as of 10/14/08 was 7,064,219 square kilometers, when compared
to a year ago 10/14/08 it was 5,487,656 square kilometers. The one-day gain between 10/13/08 and 10/14/08 of 3.8% is also
quite impressive. On May 5th, The National Snow and Ice Data Center suggested
the possibility of an ice-free north pole
in 2008, but so far, this year has been a banner year for sea ice recovery."